Cat on of textiles



No Drawing.

g R east-e28 atented Apr. 18, 1933 UNITED STATES.

PATENT OFFICE RALPH H. MGKEE, OF JERSEY CITY, AND EARLE H MORSE, 0F NUTLEY, NEW JERSEY ART or TREATING VEGETABLE mEEs The present invention relates to the art of treating vegetable fibers, and more particularly to a process of treating a vegetable fiber to change or modify its characteristics.

Due to the limited supply and relativelyhigh price of wool, many attempts have been made to provide fibers which could be used with or in place of wool. For instance,

the resulting fibers do not carry suflicient crinkle and do carry too much gum and lignin to be commercially useful. Bleaching with gaseous sulfur dioxide has been advocated but the resulting fiber turns a decided yellow if given the bleaching treatment such as is customarily given wool. Accordingly such fibers are undesirable as, when mixed with wool and made into cloth, the resulting cloth cannot when being washed and finished be given a' bleach treatment as is often done with wool cloth.

An object of the invention is to provide a process which overcomes the shortcomings of rocedures heretofore proposed.

nother object of the invention is to provide a process capable of modifying or changing the characteristics of certain vegetable fibers so that they may be suitable for use in the textile arts. 7

A further object is the provision of a proceduce which makes it possible to convert vegetable fibers of commerce ordinarily em- Application filed September 26, 1929. Serial No. 395,457.

ployed for rope makingor the like into texall Search Room tile fibers capable of being carded, spun and woven or knitted in a commercial manner.

.A further object is the provision of a procedure by which certain vegetable fibers may be given the crinkle, the soft feel and handle and other characteristics of wool so that they may be used in the textile industry either in place of wool or in admixture with wool.

It is also within the contemplation of the invention to provide a process which can be carried out on an industrial scale on a simple, economical and practical basis.

Our invention is based upon the discovery that vegetable fibers will yield to a treatment with a group of reagents and a series of operations so correlated and coordinated with each other that no hardening or embrittling or contamination with the particles of the reagents occurs and that a soft, crinkled fiber having relatively great strength, being susceptible to dyeing with practically all of the usual dyes ordinarily employed with Wool, and being capable of handling with the machinery and equipment now installed and used in the wool industry is produced.

By the present process a wool-like prodnot can be made from a number of vegetable fibers. One of the best of these fibers f0 our process is jute.

As is well known, jute is grown in India and elsewhere and is normally packed in bales weighing about 400 pounds.

The bale is first opened up and the jute cut into pieces four to seven inches in length. Eight hundred pounds of jute are put into a tank containing 1000 gallons of water which has about forty-five pounds of tri-sodium phosphate dissolved in it. The solution is kept approximately at the boiling temperature for about two hours. In this operation much coloring matter is removed and there is some swelling and loosening from each other of the fibers. This treatment is repeated sev- 8. tttacmmu a uvuwu; rLum cm N 0F TEXHLES & FIBERS, ll.

eral times. In practice the solutions which have been used in earlier runs are reused in such a way that'the'jute is first treated with the oldest and hense dirtiest solution and finally with a fresh solution of tri-sodium phosphate. v

The thus-treated jute is then removed from this solution and the phosphate is roughly washed therefrom, that is, the treated jute is washed until it no longer feels soapy to the touch.

The next step is to heat the fiber in anapproximately 4% solution of sodium bisu'lfite for an hour or two at the boiling temperature. This treatment rapidly opens up the fiber, removesthe gummy materials adherent to the fiber, and changes the color from red to a light yellow. The fiber is then removed,

washed thoroughly with water, and partially dried or pressed to remove the major portion of the adhering water.

The. following step is for the purpose of producing the crinkle in the fiber and consists of immersing the dried fiber in a caustic soda solution of about 18% strength. If the fiber is damp the bath of caustic soda will have to be of additional strength to, compensate for the water adhering to the fiber. The bath is kept at approximately room temperature and the immersion continued until thorough contact between the fiber and solution occurs. This will ordinarily require about.

two hours. The fiber is then removed from the caustic soda solution, theexcess ofsolution pressed out as far as possible, and then thoroughly washed with plenty of water. The fiber at this stage is dark in color and carries gummy material produced by the action of the strong caustic soda solution on the ligninof the fiber. The fiber is boiled for one hour in a 4 to 5% sodium bisulfite solution to remove this gummy material after which it is washed again.

To bleach the fiber it is soaked in a. very dilutemineral acid solution, e. g. one part of strong commercial hydrochloric acid (or sulfuric acid) diluted with 200 times its volume of water. This stee ing in acid at room temperature has the e ect of removing much of. the color. The fiber, which is now cream color, is next well washed with water and dried. This color of the fiber is such as to permit its being sold for most industrial uses without further bleaching.

However, if additional bleaching is desired, it can be accomplished with simultaneous increase in the softness of thefiber. For bleaching we prefer a solution containing about 1% of potassium permanganate calculated on the dry weight of the fiber to be treated. This is used in a solution of about 1 part of permanganate in 2000 parts of water. The bleaching is continued at room temperature for about two hours. Any trace of excess of permanganate or precipi- Search tated manganese dioxide is removed by one of the agents customarily used for such pur' pose. The fiber is then washed, pressed out,

immersion in a warm glycerine and soap solution made by dissolving one half pound each of glycerine and neutral soap in 100 pounds of water. '7

While we have described a specific embodiment of our invention by way of illustration, it is to be understood that we are not to be confined to the exact steps, reagents, proportions or particular devices mentioned hereinabove as they are to be regarded only as illustrative and typical, for example, caustic soda may be used as an equivalent of tri-sodium phosphate and the bleaching agents customiarily used for wool may be used in place of potassium permanganate- Various embodiments of our invention may obviously be readily made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of our invention as defined in the appended claims.

We claim:

1. The process of converting vegetable fibers of the jute type to fibers having the appearance of wool or resembling wool which comprises subjecting the fibers to the action of a hot solution containing .tri-sodium phosphate, treating the fibers with a dilute solution of sodium bi-sulfite, soaking the fibers in a solution of caustic alkali, boiling the fibers with a solution containing sodium bisulfite and applying a bleaching agent capable of whitening vegetable fibers to said fibers whereby crink ed light-colored fibers resembling wool and having characteristics thereof are produced.

2. The process such as set forth in claim 1 in which the fibers are washed with water after each operation and before the next treatment.

3. The process of converting vegetable fibers of the jute type to fibers having the appearance of wool or resembling wool which comprises subjecting the fibers to the action of a hot solution containing tri-sodium phosphate, treating the fibers with a dilute solution of sodium bi-sulfite, soaking the fibers in a solution of caustic alkali, boiling the fibers with a solution containing sodium bi-sulfite and steeping the fibers in dilute hydrochloric acid, and soaking the fibers in a solution containing potassium permanganate whereby crinkled light-colored fibers resembling wool and having characteristicsthereof are produced.

4. The process of converting jute fibers Ream to fibers having the appearance of wool or resembling wool which comprises immersing the jute fibers in a hot solution containing tri-sodium phosphate removing the jute fibers and heating the fibers in a dilute solution of sodium bi-sulfite, subjecting the jute fibers to the action of a solution containing caustic alkali, washing the jute fibers with water, boiling the fibers in a dilute solution of sodium bi-sulfite, treating the jute fibers with dilute hydrochloric acid, and immersing the fibers in a solution containing potassium permanganate whereby crinkled light-colored fibers resembling wool and having characteristics thereof are produced.

5. The process of converting jute fibers to fibers having the appearance of Wool or resembling wool which comprises immersing the jute fibers in a hot solution containing tri-sodium phosphate, removing the jute fibers and washing them with water, heating the fibers in a dilute solution containing sodium bi-sulfite, washing the thus-heated jute fibers with water, subjecting the jute fibers to the action of a solution containing caustic alkali, washing the jute fibers with water, boiling the fibers in a dilute solution of sodium bi-sulfite, washing the thus boiled fibers, treating the jute fibers with dilute hydrochloric acid, washing said fibers free of acid, and immersing the fibers in a solution containing potassium permanganate whereby crinkled light-colored fibers resembling wool and having characteristics thereof are produced.

6. The process of converting jute fibers to fibers havmg the appearance of wool or re sembling wool which comprises immersing jute fibers in a hot solution of tri-sodium hosphate, washing the phosphate solution rom said fibers, treating the washed fibers in a hot solution containing about 4% of sodium bi-sulfite, washing the fibers with water, subjecting the Washed fibers to the action of a solution containing about 18% of caustic soda, washing the fibers with cold water, boiling the washed fibers in a solution containing about 3% of sodium bi-sulfite, washin the fibers with water, treating the washed bers with dilute solution of hydrochloric acid,

washing the fibers with water, and immersing the washed fibers in a solution containing potassium permanganate to the extent of about 1% of the dry weight of the fibers.

7. The process such as set forth in claim 6 in which the fibers are treated with a softening agent subsequent to the permanganate treatment.

8. A process of preparing crinkled textile fibers from fibers of the jute type which comprises opening up fibers of the jute type by the successive treatment in an alkali solution containing trisodium phosphate and then in an acid solution containing sodium bisulfite, crinkling the fibers with a caustic soda solu- RALPH H. MCKEE. EARLE H. MORSE. 

